So. Now.

Occasionally you come to a complete halt – in the best possible way. It is so rare as to impress itself in the memory… and does so more deeply than the super-busy days.

The best times to come to a complete stop are when you are on holiday – preferably in a pleasant place. You could shudder to a halt half-way up the side of Turtle Mountain or underneath the keel of a bucket dredge in Manila Harbour but it would not be the same. I tend to prefer pub lounges or art galleries for my pauses.

It can be a fight to achieve stillness – there always seems to be some attraction that needs to be seen in any holiday place, or some activity that needs to be done. You rarely ever exhaust the possibilities, though for the sake of happiness it would be good to get past the probabilities early on.

I do remember a visit to a medieval conference in New South Wales that saw all the feasting, fighting, and posing finished in 3 days – leaving half a day amongst strangers with nothing whatsoever to accomplish. I settled into an old lounge chair on the verandah of an old cafe with a cup of tea and had a blissful time just thinking. A whole afternoon was a lot of thinking time, and it was worth it.

Lately I can find much the same relaxation in a pub lounge in a holiday city. No-one knows me, no demands are placed upon me, pints of beer and a book are occupation enough, and if the book palls, there is always a pocket notebook and a pencil…and new blog posts are born. These get funnier as the pints progress but the spelling deteriorates.